I would like to thank the citizens of Lancaster County for ensuring Preston Blackmon’s legacy lives on through the Preston Blackmon Family Success and Career Center. Your efforts in making the center a success reciprocates the love that Preston had for each one of you.

A special thanks to the Revs. George and Stella Williams, Deliverance Word of Faith Church family, Southside Adult Family Literacy Project and Southside Literacy Board for reflecting upon Preston’s life and naming the center in the honor.

Lancaster native Mike Lucas, one who has had his share of diamond success on various levels, is the new Andrew Jackson High baseball coach.

Lucas, 53, replaces Andy Morton, who has left the Lancaster County School District for a teaching position in Rock Hill after teaching at Kershaw Elementary School. Morton, in two seasons leading the Volunteers, posted a 22-25 record, including a 13-12 mark last spring and two Class AA Upper State playoff berths.

AJ athletic director Dale Reeves said he’s confident Lucas will do the job.

The J. Marion Sims Foundation recently awarded $1.1 million in grants to seven organizations in Lancaster, Chester and York counties.

The grants will provide medical care and assistance with basic needs for low-income citizens.

“Currently, a number of citizens find it difficult to obtain good medical care or to meet their basic needs for a variety of reasons,” said Jim Morton, foundation president. “We’re pleased to make awards to help meet these needs as well as others in Lancaster County, Great Falls and Fort Lawn.”

The founding principle of our nation is that we are a free people – a nation that has a government, not the other way around, as President Ronald Reagan put it.

To that end, our founders created the most amazing experiment ever in the course of human history, articulated by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Both of these documents established how we arrange our affairs in this nation so as to create maximum individual liberty in an ordered society: not anarchy, not tyranny, but the best balance between the two. In short, ordered liberty.

HEATH SPRINGS – Heath Springs Town Council may opt to raise its water and sewer rates at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The town has not raised its water and sewer rates since January 2006, when the base rate went from $13 to $15.

Heath Springs charges $15 for in-town residents for the first 3,000 gallons, while the city of Lancaster charges $19.57. Lancaster County charges $31.28 for the first 3,000 gallons. The town charges $15 for the first 3,000 gallons of sewer treatment.

I understand the sentiment of those who are calling us to say that they do not want their medical care delivered from Washington. But I also understand that 50 percent of all health care in this country is either paid for or provided through the federal government. That includes Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Tricare Standard, Tricare for Life, Veterans Health Care, Military Health Care, Indian Health Care, the Public Health Service, and the Federal Employees Benefit Program.